


a vision softly creeping

by kangeiko



Category: Mad Men
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode Related, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 01:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangeiko/pseuds/kangeiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Midge and Don conduct a business transaction during <i>Blowing Smoke</i> (S4).</p>
            </blockquote>





	a vision softly creeping

**Author's Note:**

  * For [idlerat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/idlerat/gifts).



> Thank you to my brilliant beta (name to be added after the reveal).

The look in Don’s eyes is not one of pity; of that much, Midge is certain. He seems a little disappointed in her, sure, like he’d pictured a Bohemian lifestyle considerably more fin de siècle than she has managed to produce. “I’m not that continental,” she’d told him once when he’d mentioned it, sometime after the television incident. Someone continental, she thinks, wouldn’t be bringing Don back here for money; or maybe they would be, but they would be so much better at it.

 

She feels the weight of Don’s gaze on her when she calls Harry an idiot, and she doesn’t know why he’s surprised; she’d always called a spade a spade before. Granted, she’s never ended up actually marrying one, but it had seemed a good idea at the time, and she’s never been able to resist those. It’s how she met Don in the first place, tugging him out of his carefully pressed suit and mussing up his gelled hair, and who could be sorry for that? She doesn’t regret it for a second.

 

She hates herself for telling the truth. She hates the stupid little kittens and puppies that comprise most of her portfolio, and how she could walk back into a respectable job if only she decided she wanted it enough. One of her pieces on a greeting card and she’d be back on mantelpieces all over the country, a grateful smiling grandma to complete the saccharine picture. Instead she’s here, trying to convince him to part with some money for a picture that should be worth more than that, so much fucking more, because it’s fucking _good_.

 

It’s _art_ , she thinks, and it makes her choke a little. She sits on the bed, wrapping herself in her cardigan, and Don sighs like she’s asked him for a fucking kidney.

 

“What’s it like,” he asks, and she knows he’s asking about the heroin. But it’s never been just about that, has it? It’s never been just the needle in her arm or Harry in her or on top of her, or the acid afterimage burning into her eyelids in the middle of the night until she crawls out of bed and grabs a brush. It’s never been a single thing she can pin down and say, yes, _that_ , that’s the thing I want, and everything else can go to hell. This isn’t something she can pick and choose.

 

“Like…” she considers, and grasps for something he’d understand. _It’s seeing it on the canvas, and knowing it feels right. It’s fucking this guy you call your husband and feeling a little sick because you haven’t eaten, but you can’t be bothered to stop him and it’s just easier to lie here until he’s done. It’s dreaming something amazing and crying afterwards because you know you’re never going to be able to capture it, any of it, because you’re just not good enough._ “Drinking a hundred bottles of whiskey, while someone licks your tits.”

 

It’s what he’ll understand, she thinks, and knows she’s not being fair. He always understood more than he let on, this man; maybe it’s why she could never quite bring herself to love him. There was always a little bit too much vulnerability in being known by something like this.

 

With Harry, it’s easier. It’s squalid and horrible and some days she hates it and herself, but most of the time… most of the time, she’s surprised by how much she doesn’t hate it, how much she has become used to it. The toilet doesn’t flush, and they sold off anything that could be flogged – because furniture always sold better than paintings – and neither of them can cook worth a damn, but Harry doesn’t pretend to understand her any more than she pretends to understand whatever the hell he’s trying to accomplish in his own work. He might be an idiot, Midge thinks, suddenly resentful of Don’s presence, but he’s _her_ fucking idiot.

 

Don’s looking away and murmuring something, something like, “I can see its appeal,” and she knows that he’s not talking just about heroin, any more than she had been. She hates him a little for that.

 

“He said it would help me take my mind off my work,” she says instead. “Turns out, it’s a full time job.”

 

She can see he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know how to look at her anymore, to recognise her. She can feel the slight tensing of his leg as she touches him; she’s a stranger, now. Maybe she always was, and they’d only managed to fool his body for so long.

 

Why don’t you stop, he wants to know, and she wants to laugh and to cry and to slap him. She tries to explain, but the words are inadequate and she stumbles to a halt. “I am glad to see you,” she says instead, and that should be answer enough.

 

She might not be, she thinks. She might not want to see him, but this thing inside of her needs feeding. She paints to sell her paintings to buy more heroin, to be able to paint, an endless cycle. There’s no end goal there, nothing she is moving towards anymore.

 

This, _this_ is what she was moving towards, from greeting cards to house parties to MJ to whatever was available. _This_ is the end goal, with #4 on a chair and Don trying to write out a check, his hands clumsy as she strokes his thigh.

 

It ends with him handing over a roll of cash. _How very continental_ , is on the tip of her tongue, but she knows he will not remember. Men like Don only remember things about themselves and people like them. Women never quite seem to feature.

 

He looks at her for a long moment when he hands over the cash, like he’s expecting something but isn’t quite sure what. She’s willing to provide it, regardless. “It was really great to see you, Don. Glad you haven’t changed.”

 

It’s a business transaction, she tells herself. She has one less painting in her studio, a tiny splinter of her soul whittled away for cheap practicalities; Don is taking afterimage #4 back to his expensive Village apartment, a bought dream for someone who could never dream his own.

 

The look in Don’s eyes wasn’t pity, she thinks to herself as her hands tighten over the money. He’s always looked at her that way.

 

*

 

end


End file.
